Speaker 1 (00:00): [inaudible] Speaker 2 (00:06): Hi everybody. And welcome to this week's podcast, Joe and I am this week with the fabulous Scott Ehrlich, who is the senior vice president for growth networks and content for the Sinclair broadcast group. And I had a chance to be on a panel recently with Scott and the stuff that he has his hands on is kind of a mind blow, um, and sort of the best education of what's happening in television in terms of the distribution mechanism and all the different content models. And so I thought it would be great to talk to Scott about all the things that they're up to, um, at Sinclair, um, because it's, it's a great education, I think, for the current ecosystem. So welcome to the tech cat show Scott. Um, why don't you tell us first about your role? Speaker 3 (00:50): Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Um, so I've been at the company for almost four years now. Um, and, uh, I oversee a couple of different units. Um, so my, my, my business unit is called national networks and platforms and, uh, Sinclair is at its heart, um, a local media company. So our biggest assets are our local television stations, um, and the regional sports networks that we acquired about two years ago. Um, and so we're known generally as a local media company and I was kind of brought in to be the kind of national guy. Um, so, um, that means a couple of things. So the national networks part is we have for over the air, um, broadcast networks. So yes, 25 years after I got into streaming, I got into over the air broadcasting with antennas and stuff. Um, and we'll come back to this or why that makes sense to me anyway. Speaker 3 (01:50): Um, uh, and then the other part of the job is, is, um, uh, the platforms part, our OTT platforms. So we have, uh, we have, uh, uh, a service called news on, um, which has well over 200 local newscasts aggregated into one app. And so if you're a local news junkie or your news junkie general, um, it's, it's kind of a, a real buffet. Um, and it's really, it, it, it really hits a stride in, you know, of like a hurricane hits the Gulf and you can go from a station in Shreveport to a station in mobile, to a station in Tallahassee, and you can even kind of go around and see how different people are covering the story. Um, and then of course, if you're out of market, you can, you can see, um, the news from your market and then, uh, stirs our owned and operated OTT platform we launched in, uh, in January of 18. Speaker 3 (02:48): I think it was, um, January of 19. I feel like I've been living in a time where for the last year and a half, does anybody else feel that way? Yeah, we had a year that sort of did no, it was January of 19. Um, so it's not two years old. And in stores, there's a platform that has about 130, um, uh, fast channels, uh, free ad-supported streaming television channels, um, and unique to that space, which is a space that includes people like Pluto and, and, um, uh, Samsung TV plus, and other brands in this space. We have a local curated channel for each of our markets. Um, and so right now we have 85, I think, localized channels, um, that combination of local content, um, syndicated content, um, uh, and just the mix that we think is appealing to the local broadcast audience. But, um, and then the last part of my job is, um, has to do with innovation. Speaker 3 (03:47): Um, and so I oversee a group that, um, we refer to as the content lab. Um, and about two years ago, we decided it would be really, um, helpful for all the things that we were trying to do to have a group that was just dedicated to innovation. And so we put together a cross-functional team and let's get somebody who comes from a sales background. So when it comes from a audience development background, somebody who comes from a, uh, format driven production background, um, uh, another, producer's a bit of a mad scientist kind of, um, producer and, um, uh, some research support and, and, and really kind of gave them a charter to go and break things, um, build things, um, find a different way to do things. Um, and it's been, it's been a really great group to put together and, um, really was really was eye opening, you know, when COVID hit. And we had to figure out things like, uh, like remote production, um, that team was able to dive right in and, and work with different technologies and figure out a solution so that we could, uh, we could, well, we wound up producing a newscast for, I think it was Gainesville, Florida out of a laptop in west Palm beach. Oh, cool. Speaker 2 (05:01): Cool. So like a skull, a skunkworks. Well, I would love for you to, let's take a step back now because I know you have your fingers in all these places and just sort of look at the landscape because most consumers right now have, um, and you and I were talking about this, cause it's awkward for me. I have a LG and I have a, a Firestick in it, and it takes me a while to get to the fire stick on the remote because I'm competing with the LGS own solutions. And then there's all the OTT boxes, then there's the apps. So could you kind of break it down for us? Like what are all these models and a little bit, maybe, you know, if you have any, any insights about what you think is working or why not? Because it is, it is overly complex. And I think more than ever before, especially with like what's going on in the news today with all the re aggregation now of at and T and all that, but also, um, ju just, there's so many choices for consumers. So how do we think about this? So maybe talk to us a little bit about what are all these things, which I know, you know, Sinclair and you've just mentioned has, but give it gives us, give us a sense of what this landscape is. Speaker 3 (06:17): Yeah. I mean, listen, if I really knew, um, bottle it and sell it, um, uh, uh, Speaker 2 (06:24): You know, just, we have connected TVs, right? So what we'll show, Speaker 3 (06:30): If you look the biggest issue, I think we face as a content industry right now is discovery discovery. Like discoverability of content is, is hard and getting harder. And the more content there is, the harder that problem gets. Um, and that is a common problem, no matter what, what platform you're on. Um, but, um, the way I think about it is you've got over the air, um, which is both where television started, um, and has sort of newly found its footing. Um, the largest, I think the largest growing segment of the television audience is the over the air audience. The audience, the part of the audience is getting television, um, over an antenna and digital antennas, um, are the relatively inexpensive. They started at like seven, eight, $9. Um, and you get a lot of channels, uh, here in Los Angeles. The, I actually put an antenna on my roof. Um, and when I asked my installer to do that, he was like, what? Like an antenna, like, yes, an antenna, um, I get 205 channels there, a service Speaker 2 (07:38): You're subscribing to, or it just, you buy the antenna and you just connect to TGV. Yeah. Speaker 3 (07:45): You just connect it to your TV, just old school, like you said, the rabbit rabbit ears right back in the day. Um, this is really not that different. I mean, it's a modern version of that, but it's still, it's an over the air in tennis. So there's your free over the air signals that come over FCC license, spectrum, um, and you know, you get the full uncompressed signal, um, you know, the rebroadcasting services, whether it's cable or satellite, or they have to compress the signals, um, to be able to take maximum, um, use, use their pullout platforms with maximum efficiency should have been easier to say, um, uh, over the air though, you get the full on compressed signal, um, and you know, in areas where it works, it's beautiful. Um, and you do see a lot of consumers taking this kind of hybrid approach where they'll have an antenna, they'll have, um, a streaming box of some kind, um, or a connected TV. And those are getting closer and closer in terms of the functionality that they offer. Um, and maybe they'll have one TV. Um, that's still kind of old school connected to an MVPD. Um, you know, for us as a company, it's, it's, um, it's a little like asking which of your children you prefer, right? You you're, Speaker 2 (09:09): You, you have, you have plays in all those spaces, but if, if I'm watching something over the air, are there commercials? Yep. And so, and, and there's, is there a guide or just a budget? Speaker 3 (09:22): Yeah. So the TVs, the TVs for the most part, have the guides embedded in them. Um, so the TV I have here, I plugged it into the antenna. Um, what'll happen is then it will automatically scan for channels. So the same way, like if you think about your car radio and the scan feature, um, your TV does exactly the same thing by, by, um, by default. Um, and in America you can't ship a TV that doesn't have a TV tuner. Um, so TVs all have tuners, um, but they require external antenna. So you have to plug an antenna in, um, so you probably the antenna and, and it scans for channels. And then it builds a program guide. Um, generally, um, there are some over the air DVRs, but they're all third party kind of things. I, I, haven't seen a connected TV with a built-in record function. Speaker 3 (10:12): Um, but the rest of it is built in, um, the tuners built in, uh, the program guides built in, um, all of that information gets pulled, you know, pretty big connected TV. It gets pulled through, um, through, I think he gets pulled through an internet connection. I actually don't know, but, um, but it builds the guide based on what channels it scans. Um, and one of the challenges in the, over the air space as the channels move. Um, and so we do, we did tell our audience fairly frequently to re-scan cause you might find new channels, you might find some channels have moved. Um, and so people that are regular users of antenna
